Fanny "Bobbie" Rosenfeld's 118th Birthday

Today’s Doodle celebrates the 118th birthday of Canadian sports star Fanny Rosenfeld, famously nick-named Bobbie Rosenfeld for her bobbed hair. Rosenfeld put her heart (and sole) into advocating for women in sports, and ran in the first Olympics that allowed women to compete in track and field. 

Rosenfeld was born in Ekaterinoslav, Russia (now Dnipro, Ukraine) on this day in 1904, and her family moved to Barrie, Canada during her infancy. As a young girl, she excelled in sports such as basketball, softball, lacrosse, hockey, and tennis.

The race that spurred Rosenfeld's track career was a sporting carnival, where her softball teammates encouraged her to enter the 100-yard dash and she beat the top Canadian sprinter. After that run, she underwent intense training and began making headlines at competitions like the Canadian National Exhibition’s Athletic Day and Ontario’s first women's track and field championship.

Rosenfeld sprinted in the 1928 Olympic games in Amsterdam–the first Olympics where women were allowed to compete in track and field. She narrowly missed first place and earned a silver medal in the 100-meter race and her relay team won gold in the 4x100-meter relay. 

Not long after the Olympics, a severe case of arthritis forced Rosenfeld to change tracks from competing. She remained involved in sports as a coach, executive or manager to various women's sports teams and worked as an athletics reporter at the Globe and Mail for 20 years. Her column, “Sports Reel,” covered not only sports news, but also countered the stereotype  that sports made women unfeminine. 

Rosenfeld was among the first athletes inducted into the Canadian Sports Hall of Fame and bestowed the Canadian woman athlete of the first half-century award. Ever since 1978, the Canadian Press has been granting the annual Bobbie Rosenfeld Award to a female athlete of the year. Bobbie Rosenfeld continues to inspire generations of young female athletes who see her legacy as a symbol that they too can achieve the impossible and overcome any hurdles in their pursuit of greatness.